Double Fault - Softcover

Shriver, Lionel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1852429119 ISBN 13: 9781852429119

Publisher: Serpent's Tail, 2006

Synopsis

"This book is about the small and large ways we hurt each other in the greatest competition on the face of the earth: Love. Buy it. It belongs on that shelf of books you will return to again and again."-Harry Crews

"Shriver confronts some disconcerting truths that defy a pat, politically correct resolution."-The New York Times Book Review

"Love me, love my game" says twenty-three year-old Willy Novinsky. Ever since she picked up a racquet at the age of four, tennis has been Willy's one love, until the day she meets Eric Oberdorf. She's a middle-ranked professional tennis player and he's a Princeton graduate who took up playing tennis at the age of eighteen. Low-ranked but untested, Eric, too, aims to make his mark on the international tennis circuit. Willy beholds compatibility spiced with friendly rivalry, and discovers her first passion outside a tennis court. They marry.

Married life starts well but animated shop talk and blissful love-making soon give way to full-tilt competition over who can rise to the top first. In this captivating book, Shriver dissects the hazards of a two-career relationship in this brilliantly perceptive novel about the price both men and women pay for prizing achievement over love.

Born and raised in North Carolina, Lionel Shriver is the author of seven novels, a Guardian columnist, and a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Economist. She lives in London. We Need To Talk About Kevin won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005.

About this title

From the Publisher

An ardent middle-ranked professional tennis player, Willy Novinsky meets her match in Eric Oberdorf, the handsome rogue she drubs in a pick-up game in Manhattan's Riverside Park. Eric is charmingly gracious in defeat, and his casual confidence takes her in. Low-ranked but untested, Eric, too, aims to make his mark on the international tennis circuit. Willy beholds compatibility spiced with friendly rivalry, and discovers her first passion outside a tennis court. They marry.

Conjugal life starts well on the Upper West Side of New York. But animated shop talk and blissful love-making soon give way to full-tilt competition over who can rise to the top first. Driven and gifted, Willy maintains the lead until she severs her knee ligaments in a devastating spill. As Willy recuperates, her ranking plummets just as her husband becomes the upstart darling of the tennis circuit. Ultimately Eric plays in the U.S. Open. Anguished at falling short of her lifelong dream and resentful of her husband's success, Willy slides irresistibly toward the first quiet tragedy of her young life.

Taut as match-point, Double Fault chronicles a marriage imploded by ambition. Just as Richard Yates exposed the dangers of traditional marriage in Revolutionary Road, Lionel Shriver reveals the hazards of a two career relationship. A brilliant novel about the price both men and women pay for prizing achievement over love.

About the Author

Lionel Shriver is the author of seven novels, and has written extensively for the Wall Street Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Economist. She lives in London. Her novel We Need to Talk About Kevin was the winner of the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction.

About this edition

• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1852429119
• ISBN 13: 9781852429119
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320